


Empty Barrel

by heyitsamorette (AmoretteHD)



Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Blow Jobs, Canon "Sequel", Continuation of canon, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, puppy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 20:56:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11321577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmoretteHD/pseuds/heyitsamorette
Summary: After the final battle between good guys and bad guys, Bane's missing and the Gotham Police Department is doing everything in its power to find him. John is trying to come to terms with Bruce Wayne's death and the legacy left for him. One fateful night, Bane shows up at John's door, with a broken mask and at the cusp of death.





	Empty Barrel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brookebond](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brookebond/gifts).



> TIMELINE AND CANON NOTES—This story begins about a week after the events of the movie. The end of the movie shows Bruce Wayne’s funeral, the unveiling of the Batman statue, and the completed conversion of Wayne Manor into an orphanage. At the start of this fic, only the funeral has already occurred.
> 
> A large thank you to my lovely friend Oceaxe for betaing <3
> 
> Questions? Ask me on tumblr: [@heyitsamorette](https://heyitsamorette.tumblr.com/)

“There’s only one problem,” said Police Commissioner Gordon over the phone. His voice was low, but John could hear the tightly concealed panic. “We can’t find Bane.”

John sucked in a breath. “He’s not with the others?”  
  
A little under two thousand men had been rounded up after the fallout. Men who had pledged their allegiance to Bane’s cause, turning their back on their city and reveling in the chaos and anarchy instead. There had been more, but those had already died during the fighting. Bane’s original mercenaries, the ones who followed him into Gotham, totaled a few hundred. They either wouldn’t speak or turned their weapons on themselves after realizing they had been defeated.

But even if they’d caught a thousand more men, it would have made no difference. There was only one man they wanted: Bane. And they had lost him.

“There’s not a trace of him,” Gordon said. “He’s just… disappeared.”  
  
John sat quietly after he hung up the phone, staring blankly at the television but not really seeing. He was sick of the news anyway, of seeing clips of the same footage played over and over again. Scenes of the fighting, of fallen police officers, and of the mercenaries’ tanks roaming the streets. It had been a full nine days since the good guys won, but Gotham City News still played the same shit on an infinite loop. Seeing it only made him think of Bruce, and then his stomach hurt.

He pulled himself off the black leather futon—the one Gordon had sat on just over a week ago watching Bane’s masked face on that same television, reading out Gordon’s fake resignation letter—and decided to do some mind-numbing chores. In the chaos of this last week, he’d had no time to tend to his apartment, and the place was a shit hole. Dirty dishes were piled up in the sink and had also begun to migrate over the counters. His trash was overflowing, and laundry littered the hallway all the way to his bedroom.

He picked up his black trousers, swallowing down a knot in his throat. The jacket and white shirt were strewn together on the floor further down the hall. He had ripped everything off after Bruce’s funeral and jumped straight into the shower, letting the hot water soothe his aches and mask the few tears he couldn’t force back. They did the funeral quickly, cramming it into an already packed week, but it was just as well. It was easier this way, lost in the whirlwind of cleanup and arrests and plans for reconstruction. John basically blinked and it had been over.

Doing chores was cathartic. He put the tv on low—he couldn’t bear to turn it off, even though it gave him a headache—and listened to the hum of unintelligible voices as he did his work. First the dishes, then the laundry, and finally the trash.

It was dark by the time he took the trash out. There was a large dumpster in the alley behind his building, and he went out the back door with his massive trash bag in hand, leaving the door ajar behind him so that he could get back in. A light mounted to the brick wall of the alley flickered. It created more shadows than usual, and John thought he saw something move in the corner of his eye. He stiffened, listening, his back and shoulders rigid as a board. But the moment passed without incident and he chided himself. It was nothing.

John didn’t live in what would be considered an affluent part of Gotham. It was called Old Town, and indeed it looked it. Everything was old and unkempt, from the buildings to the street signs. However, John had lived here ever since he’d left the orphanage, and even though he could afford a better place now, he wouldn’t choose to live anywhere else. He knew this neighborhood, the people in it and the kids who lived at St Swithins down the street. Rough crowds passed through every now and again, but through thick and thin, this was his home.

He heaved the bag and managed to get it over the rim of the dumpster. As soon as it landed, there was a piercing screech and the shape of a cat leapt from the dumpster and into the shadows of the alley.

“Shit!” John's heart had skipped.

There was more cat screeching and then a dog started barking. He hadn’t noticed the dog, but then again there was barely enough light to illuminate his immediate surroundings, and the rest of the alley was populated with piled up crates, the stench of garbage, and utter darkness.

The barking persisted, and though John would have normally gone back inside, something about it made him pause. It wasn’t scary barking. Quite the opposite. The bark sounded high pitched and plucky. Intrigued and curious, John took out his phone from his pocket and turned on the flashlight, aiming it in the direction of the racket.

A grin split his lips as his light illuminated the source of the barking. It was only a puppy! A small, skinny, pathetic looking thing with mottled grey fur and a fluffy tail.

“Woah, there.” John took a tentative step, shining his light just above its head to avoid blinding it and scaring it off.

“What are you doing all alone, puppy?”

The puppy decided he was more of a direct threat than the cat, so it directed its barking at him now. It held its tail high and practically bounced in its excitement and fervor. John fell in love with it instantly. It was a brave little thing.

“What are you doing out here?” He took a few more steps. The puppy was backed into a corner, sandwiched between the brick wall and a crate. With nowhere to go, it changed its tactic and began growling, baring its teeth. John chuckled.

“I’m not going to hurt you. Don’t worry.”

He put his phone on the ground face up so they’d have light, and then he lowered himself to one knee. Slowly, he extended his hand.

“Come on, don’t worry,” he repeated. He wished he had something to tempt it with—a treat, some food. If he ran back upstairs to get something, the puppy might be gone by the time he came back. He usually wouldn’t try to take in a stray animal, but this was no ordinary stray. There was something about the puppy that tugged at his heart. Maybe it was its spirit and the fact that something so tiny contained so much damn courage.

Plus, it had a collar.

“You’re someone’s pet, aren’t you? Did you get lost?”

It looked too dirty and too skinny, and John knew it wasn’t lost. It was homeless, perhaps had been for months. A story entered his head of a small family with a young child for whom, one day, the father came home with a puppy. The child probably loved the little grey puppy and put a collar around its neck in cherishing ownership, until the family was gunned down. Perhaps they'd been put on “trial” in that farce of a court, or perhaps they had simply been caught in some kind of crossfire while the city was being pillaged and terrorized during the months of Bane’s reign.

“Whatever happened to your family, you don’t have to be out here alone anymore. Come on, puppy. Come here.”

The animal eventually fell quiet, sensing that John was not trying to hurt it. Slowly and with great hesitation, it made its way toward John’s open hand.

“ _There we go_ ,” John cooed. He scratched lightly behind its ears and was delighted that the puppy let him. Its ears were too big for its head, like they had gone through an awkward growth spurt and just didn’t look quite right yet. “There’s a good boy. Or maybe you’re a girl. Let’s get a better look at this collar.”

A dangling silver plaque was engraved with a name.  
  
“Milo.” John picked the puppy up in both hands and held him agains his chest, and though he yapped a few times, he didn’t put up a fight.

He took Milo upstairs, cooing at him all the way. When he reached the first floor landing, he thought he heard footsteps climbing the stairs behind him. Not uncommon for others to take the stairs, but he hadn’t seen anyone enter behind him. Still, he kept climbing.

On the second floor landing, there was a thump.

John stopped, listening. His fingers prickled to reach for his gun, but as the seconds ticked by in staggering silence, he figured it was probably all in his head.  
  
“Did you hear that?” he asked Milo. The dog stuck his tongue out, and John grinned. “I’m hearing things now. I’m losing it.”

He turned his attention back to fawning over the dog as he climbed the rest of the stairs.

“I’m going to get you some real food to eat,” he said as he unlocked his apartment door. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’ve probably been eating nothing but trash for months, you’re so skinny! Don’t worry, boy, you’re okay now.” He mindlessly tugged at the door to swing it shut. “You’re going to be just f— AH!”

Out of nowhere, he was knocked on the back of the head.

Blackness clouded his vision, and then pinpricks of light swam before his eyes as the world gradually returned.

Milo was yapping loudly, unrelentingly.

John felt woozy, unbalanced. By the time his vision returned and his mind righted itself, he realized he was leaning against the dining table in his kitchen while clutching the back of his head. His skull throbbed. The dog wouldn’t stop barking.

Hands gripped his waist, swinging him around to face his attacker. John didn’t even have time to think about reaching for his gun in his back pocket before a hand swiftly gripped him by the throat, and he brought both hands up instinctively to pull at it. For all the good that did. He had been caught off guard and overpowered. A sick shiver rolled up his spine.

He was staring at a face. A face he had never seen before, yet something about it was familiar. Intense hazel eyes, pale skin, and an expression that spoke of both fury and excruciating pain stared back at him. The thing that made John’s breath catch in his throat was the mouth. Surrounded by the light brown hair of a newly-growing beard, the man’s lips were crossed by an angry, white scar. It started from his left nostril and ran diagonally across his top and bottom lips, intersecting them with raised white scar tissue, and ending on the right side of his chin. Hair did not grow around it, making his beard come in severely misshapen and uneven.

It was only when his eyes traveled lower over the man’s massive form that it dawned on him who this person was. John entire body stiffened and his mouth fell open.

Bane looked like another person without his mask. It was amazing what a few straps of leather and metal could do. In their absence, he looked… human.

He wore his coat buttoned to the top, the heavy collar wrapped around his neck. He even had hair, slowly growing and filling in his hairline. His skin was pale and pulled taut across his face; he was obviously straining against some kind of pain. When he breathed, his chest rose and fell visibly, and air left his throat like the low rumble of a lion.

“What—” John gritted his teeth. The fist around his throat wasn’t choking him as much as his own surprise and panic were. “What do you want?” he managed to bite out.

 _Also, where did you come from? And, where have you been hiding all this time?_ Clearly he'd been the one following John inside from the alleyway. John had left the door open long enough, it would have been easy for someone to sneak in while he was distracted by the dog and then wait to follow him stealthily up the stairs.

Bane bared his teeth, much like the cornered dog in the alley had done. Only Bane’s grimace spoke of torture.

His grip faltered. It was only for a moment, but it was long enough.

John swung his elbow down hard over Bane’s wrist, pushing it down.  Then John ducked, swerving to the side before Bane could react. Damn, he was slow. Much different than the Bane he remembered from just over a week ago. That man had been a force of nature. An unstoppable mountain of power. The man standing before him, however, resembled him only in size.

In two seconds, John had his gun pointed directly in Bane’s face.

“What do you want?” he repeated.

Bane leaned forward as though to take a step. John braced himself, steadying his gun, ready to pull the trigger if Bane decided to barrel toward him. He had the brief image of facing off with a bull.

Bane opened his disfigured mouth. “W...w…” His voice was gravelly and rough, as though unused for days.

What the hell? What was he trying to say? Last time John heard Bane speak, it was over a megaphone as he addressed the entire city of Gotham in his eloquent drawl. His voice had been smooth in a way that flowed over and through him, gripping John as ferociously as Bane’s fist had done his throat.

But this Bane, this imposter, could barely form a word.

Bane’s eyelids slid shut for a moment before he snapped them back open. He gripped the edge of the table, leaning his weight onto it so much so that the legs creaked. Holy shit, Bane was about to faint.

“Water…” he managed to forcibly exhale before stumbled onto one knee.

John brought his arms down; only such a vision could make him lower his gun. Utterly shocked, his mouth hung open and he remained rooted to the spot. It was only when Bane fell onto both knees that he snapped out of it and ran to the sink.

He grabbed a glass from the cabinet and turned on the faucet to cold. The water streamed out, but in his haste, it seemed more like a slow trickle. The strange idea gripped him that Bane might fall dead by the time John returned with a full glass of water, and he barked out a laugh at his own ridiculousness. He turned off the faucet and returned with a half-full glass.

Bane pulled it from his hands and gulped it down in under two seconds, water trickling into his beard.

“Where’s your mask?”

Damn it, was that really the only thing he could think to say? Not, “get out of my place, you murderous psycho!” That would have been a normal response. But John burned with curiosity and he didn’t actually want Bane to leave. He found himself enthralled. There had always been something mystifying about the man, but now moreso than ever. A million questions assaulted John’s head. The first of which was, of course, centered around the missing mask.

The answer came when Bane reached into the recesses of his massive shearling coat, pulled something out, and tossed it onto the floor. It made a heavy thud and rolled once before coming to a stop by John’s feet.

Something about seeing the once infamous mask dismembered like that, its metal tubing splayed this way and that like the unfurled guts of a dead thing, caused a shadow of emotion to pass over John. The depth of it took him off guard. He clenched his jaw and focused on something else.

“You’re in pain.”

As if to highlight the point, Bane got to his feet with a heavy grunt. John’s hand poised to grab his gun again if he needed it.

“What’s wrong with you?” John asked. He could see nothing outwardly the matter with him. But it was possible, even likely, that he had gotten wounded in the fighting that day, and if he has been hiding out ever since, with no medical care, it made sense that he was not doing so well.

Bane unbuttoned his coat, one button at a time. As he worked his way down, he revealed a muddy brown t-shirt. It took a few more buttons and a few more seconds for John to realize that it wasn’t mud.

He let out an exhaled whistle. “Someone did a number on you.” The blood had dried to a dull brown. Bane was covered in it.

Bane let his coat drop and stood in his long-sleeve t-shirt, which looked to have been white at some point.

“How have you survived? All this time?” _Without a doctor_ , he added internally.

Bane grunted again, a couple of times, and John realized it was actually strained and gritty laughter. Impossibly, a smirk formed over Bane's lips. With his uneven beard and scar, it only made him look even more demented.

“Y-you think this is the worst…” Bane paused to take a rattling breath “...I’ve been through?”

“I don’t know, you look pretty bad to me.”

John’s assessment was confirmed when Bane swayed, and the table creaked again. “Go sit over there.” John pointed to the futon. “ _Jesus_ ,” he said under his breath.

Bane didn’t move. “I need…” Another strangled breath.

John stared at him, puzzled, until his brain clicked. Bane was unraveling him. “One sec.” He knew exactly what Bane needed.

He went down the small hallway that led to the bedroom, with a bathroom just before it. Before he went in, he spotted the puppy crouched by the bedroom doorway.

“Hey,” John whispered, going down on one knee. He beckoned with a wave of his hand. “Milo, come here. Don’t be scared, boy “

Milo didn’t move, so John sighed and got back up. He went into the bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet, and retrieved the bottle of Aleve.

Bane was already spread on the futon. Good. If anything, it meant he was less likely to attack John again. Still, he kept his gun within easy reach.

Bane swallowed the three pills while gulping another whole glass of water. Clearly he had been through a lot if he was this thirsty and this desperate that he would allow John to take care of him. John looked down at the mask that was still lying on the floor, as innocuous as a toy.

“Have you been hiding out on the streets this whole time?” he asked quietly.

Bane didn’t make any indication he’d even heard him. His eyes were shut and his lips parted ever so slightly, accommodating his rasping breath. But there was something less tortured about the pace of it, his blood stained chest rising and falling more evenly.

In sleep, he looked so young. John could pin him from anywhere between twenty-eight and thirty-three. It was insane to think about. Bane—the monster, the legend—was just a man.

John sighed and turned back to Milo, who was now curiously angling his snout up, sniffing at Bane’s boot.

“Can I trust you to stay here and not cause any trouble?” The dog continued to investigate Bane’s footwear, sticking its tongue out for an experimental lick. “Or are you going to wake him up and get yourself stomped on?”

After deciding Milo would most likely be fine—if he was scrappy enough to survive on his own in the alleys of Gotham, he’d probably be capable enough to hide from Bane if the sleeping giant woke up. Not that it looked likely he would. With that settled, John grabbed his wallet off the dining table, shoved it into his back pocket, and headed out.

 

+

 

The air conditioning was on full blast in the grocery store despite the fact it was winter and outside was starting to snow. John shivered as he bypassed the chilly produce aisle, clutching a small basket in hand. He dodged mothers with their large carts, not really paying attention to anyone around him, his mind preoccupied. But it meant he didn’t see Sanders when he bumped into him.

“John! Hey, how’s it going, buddy?” Sanders grinned broadly, his thick frame blocking John’s path through the frozen poultry aisle.

John forced a smile and resigned himself to small talk. This was not a good time to bump into any co-workers. Sanders was one of the officers that had been stuck in the sewers for three months during Bane’s reign of terror. Just seeing him now made guilt bubble up hot and suffocating in John’s chest.

He really should tell Sanders he’d found Bane—or rather, that Bane had found him. He should be on the phone with Gordon right now, making plans for a S.W.A.T. team to surround his building and apprehend the fugitive now that he was in a prone position. So why wasn’t he? Instead, he was looking for first aid supplies, dog food, and the prepared food section so he could grab two rotisserie chickens. Maybe three; Bane could probably eat two all on his own.

He’d call Gordon as soon as he got home.

“Haven’t seen you at the station lately,” Sanders said.

“Gordon has assigned me to the prison to interview Bane’s men. We’re hoping one of them will talk and give us some clues.” In reality, he had been busy sorting out the last of Bruce’s stipulations from his will. Bruce had ordered that Wayne Manor be converted into an orphanage, and he had some kind of surprise gift for John by way of some strange coordinates. But this was all top secret, and he and Gordon didn’t tell anyone they were involved in Bruce Wayne’s personal business.

“Ah, Bane. There’s absolutely no trace of him. My team and I have been looking nonstop.”  
John’s gut twisted. Sanders was leading the task force in the Bane hunt. What would he think if he knew that John was letting Bane sleep on his futon right now?

“That motherfucker ruined Gotham. My neighbor’s dead because of him. Hell, I almost died myself down in those sewers when they blew up the exits.” Sanders narrowed his eyes and John could see the malice sparking there. “He can’t have gotten far. We’ll find him, I know we will. It’s just a matter of time. And when I get my hands on him…” He stepped in close and lowered his voice. “I know you won’t tell Gordon I said this, but when I get my hands on him, there’s no way I’m handing him over. I’ll put a bullet through his head right there and then.”

John opened his mouth to object but he found it too dry to speak. He could tell Sanders wasn’t kidding, he wanted to hurt Bane. And although Bane deserved it, John pictured Sanders pointing the barrel of his gun to the middle of Bane’s forehead, and all he could see was the face of the man lying in his living room. No mask, no bullet proof vest… just an exhausted young man in terrible pain with an angry scar running across the bottom half of his face.

He swallowed. John knew there was no way he was turning him in.

**Author's Note:**

> \+ To Be Continued +


End file.
